1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a storage medium for a printer driver program, a print control apparatus, and a method for controlling the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
A print control apparatus for causing a print device to execute a part of or all of print processing has been proposed. As an example of such print control apparatus, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-171050 discloses a print control apparatus that causes a print device to execute print processing of a phase to be executed by the print device based on selection information indicating whether print processing is executed by either the print control apparatus or the print device for each phase of print processing. With this arrangement, the processing load on a program (hereinafter referred to as “printer driver” or “printer driver program”) for performing print processing running on the print control apparatus is reduced.
Also, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-071602 discloses an information processing apparatus that switches between a mode for converting print data into image data using a host computer and a PDL mode for converting print data into image data using a print device based on the result of the prediction of printing time.
In the conventional print control technique, a printer driver provided in a print control apparatus needs to include processing modules or parameters required for print processing such that print processing can be executed by both the print control apparatus and the print device. The ratio of these parameters to the total data volume in the printer driver is relatively high. Hence, in a device such as a thin client in which a reduction in storage capacity is required, storage capacity may not be reduced even if the conventional print control technique is applied thereto.
On the other hand, when there is a function not corresponding to the printer driver among the newly added functions (for example, new media type) in the print device, the printer driver cannot use the function. For example, a simple and general purpose printer driver (hereinafter referred to as “class driver”) corresponding to a plurality of print devices in a similar system may not conform to the functions the newly added in the print device.
The class driver can execute print processing in the same way as the printer driver dedicated to a print device as long as the print device is a print device in a similar system, and its data volume has been reduced. However, the class driver cannot be used for those which can only be printed by a dedicated driver such as a new printing function or the like, provided in the print device.